THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


ABRWH WORKING GROUP MEETING
 

SEC PROCEDURES 


The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically on April 11, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

April 11, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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SEC PROCEDURES 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, CHAIR 

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COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 55 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

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 P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H. 


Director 


The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental 


Medicine 


Professor of Medicine 


Nashville, Tennessee 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


STAFF
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 


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PARTICIPANTS
 

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS 


FUORTES, LARS 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KATZ, TED, NIOSH 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATT, NIOSH 


MCKEEL, DAN 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


STAUDT, DAVID, ORAU 


SUNDIN, DAVID, NIOSH 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(9:00 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade, and I’m the 


Designated Federal Official for the Advisory Board. 


I’d like to welcome you all to a Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board, and this is the 


Working Group chaired by Dr. Melius and ably staffed 


by Drs. DeHart, Ziemer and Mark Griffon. And this 


Working Group was set up expressly to look at issues 


related to the Special Exposure Cohort issues, the 


procedures that the Board will use. We’ve also added 


a task to the SC&A contract that has some generic 


tasks associated with review and recommendation on 


procedures, and that comes under the governance of 


this Working Group. 


Also, the Board has asked SC&A to take on the 


full review of the Ames, Iowa petition. And that 


technical effort also comes under the responsibility 


of this Board. 


There are two other active ongoing SEC review 


activities, one related to Y-12 and one Rocky Flats. 


Those have been assigned to a Working Group chaired 

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by Mark Griffon. That includes also Wanda Munn, Mike 


Gibson and Bob Presley. That Working Group will be 


meeting to talk about Y-12 issues this afternoon, 


starting at 1:00 p.m. and Rocky Flats issues, 


starting at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday. 


So this Working Group is talking about generic 


SEC procedures as well as Ames, Iowa. I make that 


distinction because we want to be careful about 


managing our conflict of interest activities. There 


are members of this Working Group, Drs. DeHart and 


Ziemer, for example, who are conflicted on Y-12, but 


since we’re not scheduled to be talking about Y-12, I 


think that’s fine. There are no Board members that 


are conflicted on Ames, so again, we can have a full 


and open discussion by the Working Group members, as 


well as any of the Board members who would like to 


contribute with regard to Ames. 


Remember that the Board’s procedures for dealing 


with SEC petition issues are that if a Board member 


is conflicted at a particular site under discussion, 


then that Board member would not be at the table –- 


would not participate in the discussion of the Board. 


They could make comments during a public comment 


period. They clearly would not make motions or a 


vote. So our response to conflicts on SEC matters 

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are much more stringent, and therefore, I thought it 


important that we understood the distinction between 


this call and then the subsequent calls that will 


happen this afternoon and tomorrow. 


Just by way of background, the way that I have 


been planning for the Board’s activity is that again 


the Ames, Iowa SEC Petition Evaluation Report was 


issued yesterday, and that’s what we were just 


talking about. We do not have on the agenda for the 


April 25th, 26th and 27th meeting a formal presentation 


of the Ames SEC Petition Evaluation Report. The 


reason I didn’t do that was because again we’re just 


now starting in earnest the review of the Ames 


petition by SC&A, and I wanted to allow some time. 


It would be my at least planning intention to have 


the Ames Petition Evaluation Report scheduled to be 


presented with the Board voting on it at the June 


meeting. That’s the current plan. We do have 


scheduled for the April meeting four SEC Petition 


Evaluation Report presentations. Those are Y-12, 


Rocky Flats, Nevada Test Site and Pacific Proving 


Grounds. 


Again, I’d be more than willing to take guidance 


from this Working Group or the subsequent working 


groups as to our scheduling, but that’s the 

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scheduling as it currently exists now. 


Again, other things that are on tap for today, 


should the Chair and the members wish, you know, SC&A 


has developed materials on review and Board 


procedures for SEC Petitions. I think John Mauro is 


even prepared to discuss how the SEC -– the SC&A 


recommendations contrast with Dr. Melius’s Working 


Group’s writings on the topics. 


SEC PROCEDURES
 

So again, this morning to talk about SEC related 


issues in general, Ames in particular as needed. And 


with that I’ll turn it over to you, Dr. Melius. 


Maybe we could go about and do some introductions as 


you might like. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, good morning, everybody. Why 


don’t we start by figuring out who’s on the call. 


Since I came on late I didn’t hear everybody 


introducing themselves. So obviously I’m Jim Melius, 


Chair of the Working Group. 


DR. WADE: And other Working Group members on the 


call, please? 


MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon. 


DR. WADE: Is Paul Ziemer or Roy DeHart on the 


call? 


(no response) 

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Larry, could I ask you to have someone from your 


office call Roy? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, we will. 


DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. 


MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson, Working Group –- Well, 


I’m not on the Working Group, but I’m on the Board. 


DR. WADE: Okay. Other Board members? 


MR. PRESLEY: Bob Presley from the Board. 


DR. WADE: Thank you, Bob, for joining us. Any 


other Board members present? 


Why don’t we do SC&A? 


DR. MAURO: John Mauro from SC&A. 


DR BEHLING: Hans Behling, SC&A. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A. 


DR. WADE: Any other SC&A representatives? 


From NIOSH this is Lew Wade with NIOSH. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton at the Cincinnati 


Airport Marriott Hotel, sitting here with Matt McFee 


from ORAU Team. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford with NIOSH. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Larry Elliott with NIOSH. 


MR. SUNDIN: Dave Sundin, NIOSH. 


MR. KATZ: Ted Katz, NIOSH. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz Homoki-Titus, Health and 


Human Services. 

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MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell with Health and Human 


Services. 


DR. WADE: Any other Federal employees on the 


line? 


MR. STAUDT: This is David Staudt with NIOSH. 


DR. WADE: Good morning, Dave. 


MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Department of Labor. 


DR. WADE: Any other Federal employees? Any 


other ORAU or contractor team members that haven’t 


been introduced? 


COURT REPORTER: Dr. Wade? 


DR. WADE: Yes? 


COURT REPORTER: Hi, this is Ray. Could I get 


the name of that last person from ORAU that 


identified? I didn’t quite catch it. 


DR. WADE: I think the last -– I don’t know who 


was the last person to speak? Was it David Staudt? 


COURT REPORTER: That was the name. What’s that 


last name? 


MR. STAUDT: David Staudt. S-t-a-u-d-t. 


COURT REPORTER: Okay, thank you. 


DR. WADE: And David is the contracting officer 


with CDC for the SC&A contract. 


COURT REPORTER: Thank you. 


DR. WADE: Anyone else on the line who wishes to 

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identify themselves? 


DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel from St. Louis. 


DR. WADE: Welcome, Dan. 


Okay, Jim. 


DR. MELIUS: Thanks. Is there anybody -– Are we 


expecting anybody on the line or to participate from 


the petitioner group at Ames? 


DR. FUORTES: This is Lars Fuortes. I don’t know 


if you can hear me. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, okay. 


DR. WADE: Welcome, Lars. Anyone else 


representing petitioners? 


COURT REPORTER: I’m sorry Dr. Wade, I didn’t get 


that last name either. 


DR. WADE: Lars Fuortes. 


COURT REPORTER: Okay, thank you. 


DR. WADE: Now just to be clear I would ask for 


the SC&A or NIOSH or ORAU people, is there anyone 


participating in the call who has a conflict with 


regard to the Ames site? 


DR. MAURO: For SC&A, no one has a conflict. 


DR. WADE: NIOSH, ORAU? 


MR. ELLIOTT: I don’t believe anyone from NIOSH 


or ORAU has a conflict of interest regarding Ames. 


DR. WADE: Okay. Okay, Jim. 

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DR. MELIUS: For -– If it’s all right with 


everybody, I thought we would maybe work this call 


backwards, but start with Ames, and talk about that. 


And then the second part of the call to talk about 


some of the more general procedural issues. That way 


people that are -- Lars and others who will 


participate from the petitioner group will be able to 


keep their part of the call shorter and need not 


listen in or participate in the second part of the 


call. 


It certainly would help me since I just got the 


report late last night –- I got access to my e-mail ­

– if Larry if you or Jim Neton or someone from the 


staff could just sort of give just a brief overview 


of the Evaluation Report on Ames. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Jim, you want to do that or... 


DR. NETON: I think LaVon Rutherford might be in 


a better position to do that since he was more 


actively involved in the process. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. This is LaVon 


Rutherford. We actually went through a number of 


data sources. If you went through the petition, we 


went through a number of data sources. We determined 


that thorium exposure was thorium and the plutonium 


exposures. We had no real data up until ’52 time 

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period. 


At ’52 we started getting some data, but the data 


was not enough to support dose reconstruction. So we 


recommended adding a class up until ’55 -- or ’50. 


And the (unintelligible) is the end of the AEC 


operations. 


DR. WADE: You cut off when you spoke about the 


dates. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: I’m sorry. 


DR. WADE: Could you repeat the dates? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: It could be difficult because it 


isn’t phones that are... 


The dates started -- or the end of the class 


period ended in ’54 at the end of AEC operations. 


And it started at the -– 1942 and ended in December 


31st, 1954. Again, it was based on thorium exposures. 


We had little data up until ’52, ’53 time period. 


And that data that became available ’52, ’53 time 


period had some BZ, breathing zone, samples. We had 


a little bit of air monitoring data. However, at the 


time we didn’t feel it supported dose reconstruction 


for the thorium exposures, as well as we had no data 


at all for the plutonium exposures. 


And recognizing that the thorium exposures 


actually began shortly after the uranium operations 

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began in January of ’42. So that’s where we started 


the actual class period designation. 


DR. MELIUS: LaVon or whoever, is this –- Can we 


assume that this then would cover every -– all of the 


facility of the AEC portion of this facility and time 


period for where this was sort of officially an AEC 


facility? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, that is correct. 


DR. MELIUS: Okay. Just a little, not being 


familiar with the facility in full, I just want to 


make sure I understood the coverage on it and so 


forth. 


And, and we’re also presuming that this is a 250 


day –- It’s chronic exposure here I guess, so we have 


the assumption there would be 250 days of work there 


to qualify. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: That is correct. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: Since you brought those two issues up 


I, if it’s okay at this time, I –- One of the things 


that we had noticed regarding the Evaluation Report 


had to do with the two issues you just brought up, 


namely the dates. We did notice there was that one 


year. In the petition it actually went through 1955, 

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by way of clarification. What I’m raising this by 


way of clarification. I notice that the petition 


actually extended through the end of 1955, but the 


finding, the proposed class goes through the end of 


1954. And so by the way of clarification I guess we 


were looking for a little bit more information 


regarding that one year, sort of left out. 


And the second point that you also had raised was 


the 250 days portion, namely in reading the 


Evaluation Report -- By the way, Arjun, myself and 


Hans have basically reviewed these documents. One of 


the issues that emerged was it’s not really clear 


right now in the Evaluation Report the degree to 


which the 250 -- whether or not there are incidents 


that are under consideration as part of this 


Evaluation Report, which would say to the effect that 


yes there were incidents where exposures could have 


occurred that were over a period less than 250, but 


still possibly warrant compensation because of the 


nature of the exposure that occurred of that 


relatively short period of time. 


I bring those up now because you had mentioned 


them, and they are two points of clarification 


regarding the Evaluation Report that would be helpful 


to us. 

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MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon Rutherford again. 


The reason why we stopped at the 1954 date was based 


on a document that’s “History and Current Radiologic 


Conditions of the Ames (unintelligible)” and 


“Assessment of Cause Mitigations Efforts and Current 


Status of Thorium 232, Uranium 238 and Beryllium 


Contamination in Wilhelm Hall.” Those two documents 


indicated that the AEC operation ceased in 1954, and 


they did not give a specific date in 1954. That is 


why we ended up with the December 31st, 1954. Two 


hundred fifty days was based solely on our review of 


the data. We did not cover any incidents -- uncover 


any incidents that we felt would that were (sic) 


warrant a significantly high exposure that would 


alter the 250 day criteria. 


DR. MELIUS: Do you have, John, do you have any 


other I guess -- You had reviewed or members of your 


team had reviewed some of the background information 


on this petition sort of in preparation for a more 


complete review. Is there any other information you 


have or questions that you had as a result of that 


review? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, we in fact reviewed the entire 


petition, and we reviewed 70 documents that were 


downloaded, so yes we have in effect read through all 

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of the material, and we were actually at the stage 


where we were formulating our I guess initial 


impressions, maybe that’s the proper term, related to 


these matters, and of course we were very anxious to 


read the outcome of the Evaluation Report. 


We have caucused. SC&A folks on the phone have 


caucused a bit on our findings to date, and I’ll just 


one major observation that we that I’ll pass on, but 


certainly I would like to hand the baton off to Arjun 


and Hans also, had to do with the apparently there 


were a large number of explosions that occurred to 


the point where there were periods of time where the 


exposures could have been very high, over relatively 


short periods of time and in a manner that was 


extremely difficult to reconstruct. So one of the 


reasons we were coming around to the point where we 


say well at least that aspect of the operation is 


going to be extremely difficult to reconstruct. 


And so from that perspective we identified, we 


peeved (ph) that up and a possible SEC issue that is 


going to be difficult to deal with. Now there are 


other areas, but I’d like to pass that on to Arjun 


and Hans, if you will, to communicate some of your 


initial impressions. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I was the person sort of 

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tasked with coordinating this, and I worked with Hans 


and I have looked at quite a few documents and my 


preliminary assessment of the Petition Evaluation is 


that we’re in broad agreement, actually, on the 


grounds that LaVon talked about that is we found no 


data for plutonium and we also found the same data 


described by LaVon, so I think and we also talked in 


a preliminary way that it will be very difficult to 


do a reasonable even maximal dose reconstruction with 


that. Of course that was just an impression and we 


awaited NIOSH’s analysis. 


The one question that I have that we have talked 


about as John said is, if I remember correctly, 


haven’t had time to go back and review all the 


documents, and maybe Dr. Fuortes can correct me if 


I’m wrong, is that there was evidence provided in the 


material by the petitioners on the documents. Of 


these six blowouts, of a day in which there was six 


blowouts, and of very high levels of uranium dust, 


and so I, the question that I kind of have is what 


evaluation did NIOSH do of that specific thing in 


regard to the sort of were there incidents that would 


qualify even if it were less than 250 days. 


DR. FUORTES: I guess if I could enter. This is 


Lawrence Fuortes. I did say, out of ignorance, in 

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the petition that I thought there might have been 


specific incidents that might preclude the 250 day 


criterion, and actually both of uranium and of 


thorium reduction. The uranium appeared to be more 


frequent and larger, but there were also descriptions 


of blowouts during the thorium reduction process. 


And another clarification, the reason the 


petition listed 1955 as an end date was because given 


what we’ve seen in other industrial processes, we 


felt that there must have been a cleanup period after 


the thorium processing that had (unintelligible), so 


we used an arbitrary period of time of the year of 


1955, the year following termination of the 


processing. Thank you. 


DR. WADE: Just for the record, Lars. Since 


you’ve last been with us, our procedures now 


encourage, in fact, petitioners to participate in 


these discussions so -– 


DR. FUORTES: Thank you. 


DR. WADE: -- if you have a comment you feel 


compelled to make, please feel free to make them. 


DR. FUORTES: Thank you. 


DR. BEHLING: This is Hans Behling. In addition 


to the episodic radiological events that are 


difficult to quantify, you just look at the 1952 

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radiological survey data and look at certain key 


areas where air concentrations were taken, you could 


probably come to some assessment even in the absence 


of specific radiological events that air 


concentrations at certain locations probably over a 


period of matter of weeks would probably suffice for 


radiological doses to the lungs and other tissues 


that would possibly already qualify so that aside 


from significant events you could probably just look 


at the survey data taken in ’52 and draw certain 


conclusions about doses that may have been received 


just from ambient levels of air concentrations. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. One more thing to 


add in this context is the bone, the bone surface 


dose conversion factor for thorium is very high, and 


since there were incidents involving thorium, or at 


least there may be evidence of that, we didn’t see an 


evaluation of these things. Perhaps NIOSH has done 


an evaluation that NIOSH intends to publish later on 


as a supplemental piece to this. It’s just a 


question in my mind as to evaluation of incidents 


in less than 250 days. 


DR. MELIUS: Jim or Larry, do you --


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I’ve got a couple 


things I’d just like I think I can point out. One is 

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I think if you look at the back of the Evaluation 


Report, the boxes checked that we believe we can do 


uranium dose assessments with sufficient accuracy. 


But we’re not discounting the fact that we can’t do ­

– We’re not saying that we can’t do uranium dose 


reconstruction, so for example if non-presumptive 


cancers came over, we feel there is sufficient data 


to reconstruct the uranium intakes based on the 


available monitoring data. So that sort of takes the 


uranium issue, we think, off the table. Even if 


there were high incidents we have some urine data 


that could bound those intakes. 


To get to the episodic versus the acute nature of 


the exposure scenarios, merely having an explosion 


resulting in a fairly large air-borne concentration 


does not necessarily result in a huge internal dose. 


It’s common practice when an explosion occurs for 


people to at least evacuate the area in a somewhat 


timely manner, so even if one were to have multiple 


levels of the allowable concentration in air, in fact 


the total exposure to the person is not as great as 


one would need to qualify for the discrete incident 


criteria we believe. 


Secondly, I think what Hans referred to all these 


air-borne levels that one could use to quantify large 

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exposures, that would seem to indicate that we could 


probably do some sort of bounding analysis and do 


dose reconstruction. That would not in itself 


qualify petitioners of that class for SEC. 


DR. FUORTES: This is Lars Fuortes again. I’m 


maybe confused about the process, but it strikes me 


that one day’s urine excretion of uranium during what 


might be, presumed to be a standard production, and 


we don’t know what their production rates are, may 


be, it may be optimistic to assume that that could be 


generalized to data that could be used to bound 


exposure for uranium for these workers. I believe 


that there is a paucity of exposure data for these 


workers, so I think that the statement that we –- or 


the impression that you’re giving that you could do 


dose reconstruction for the uranium exposures is 


maybe contestable. And there are some, I think, some 


reflections of bias in statements like that that I 


find curious, and even in the calculations that 


you’ve used for estimations of exposure based on the 


urine excretions. 


If you look, for example, and this may apply to 


many other facilities, you use a figure of 1.4 liters 


of urine excretion, and I’ve talked to several of you 


about this over the last year, 1.4 liters of urine 

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excretion is the figure that’s reported as an 


average, whereas there’s a well reported normal range 


of .8 to 2 liters, and I would think one would 


consider the difference between 2 and 1.4 to be 


significant as regards trying to come up with a 


claimant-friendly dose assumption. So I’m still 


curious about the reflection of an a priori judgment 


made by NIOSH as regards ability to do dose 


reconstruction and in a means that appears to 


actually limit exposure. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I guess I’m not 


quite sure where to start with that. It strikes me 


that right now, under the thorium -– under the way 


this SEC class is defined, all workers qualify with 


(unintelligible) 250 days exposure. To then say we 


can’t do uranium dose reconstructions would certainly 


limit our ability to do any dose reconstructions for 


anyone internally at that facility, even if they were 


non-presumptive. I’m not sure what the end result is 


for that, but –-


DR. FUORTES: The end result isn’t different for 


the Ames workers, Jim, it’s, but it’s a reflection of 


a philosophy on the part of the people doing these 


evaluations that I think might have great 


significance for other workforces, if you believe 

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that on the basis of a sub-sample of 20 workers from 


one day from 1942 one can make a judgment about 


radiation exposures from uranium, that that already 


strikes me as a large assumption based on a paucity 


of data. And then the reflection, as I said, which 


I’d already discussed with I believe with you if not 


with others, that 1.4 liters is an adequate judgment 


for the urine volume from which to extrapolate dose. 


I think those are reflections of an a priori 


assessment. So you’re right, it doesn’t change 


anything in terms of the acceptance of the SEC 


Petition for this particular workforce; it’s just an 


impression I wish to comment on. 


DR. WADE: But Lars, this is Lew Wade. I think 


what Jim was saying is, although it might affect the 


ability to pursue dose reconstruction for people with 


non-presumptive cancers, if we make the decision that 


it’s categorically impossible, then there is no 


recourse for those people. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Wade, this is Arjun 


Makhijani. I think one point of clarification may 


help the debate and Dr. Fuortes, in terms of how 


various categories of dose reconstruction (sic). 
I 


think in this particular context, leaving aside these 


implications for other facilities, in this particular 

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context -- Jim, correct me if I’m wrong -– but the 


dose reconstruction you will be pursuing for non-


presumptive cancers would be a minimum dose 


reconstruction because you obviously cannot 


reconstruct, you know, several pieces of it. So if 


you can construct say a minimum external dose for 


shallow dose for uranium or along with internal dose 


and the data. You know there are data that would 


enable you at least to say that this, at least this 


much happened. Is that, is that the implication of 


what you were saying for uranium? 


DR. NETON: That’s right. We would try to 


reconstruct as much dose as possible, aside from the 


thorium and plutonium exposure, that we believe we 


can, so... 


We have urine data -– I would need some help on 


this, but I believe we have more than just those 21 


samples from 1942, although I haven’t looked at the 


data myself fairly recently, but the fact is that 


urine samples, urinary excretion of uranium is really 


a long -– fairly decent long-term indicator of 


deposition of uranium in the body. It stays around, 


and that’s why the doses are so high, when you -- It 


either stays in the lung for a long period of time or 


when it leaves the lung it incorporates into the 

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skeleton and the liver and the kidney tissues and 


continues to be excreted for a fairly long period of 


time. Using those excretion models, we believe we 


can bound the upper limit of exposure, given a 


urinary sample even several years after a potential 


intake. 


With regard to the urinary excretion volumes, you 


know, I think this whole concept of the amount of 


urine excreted per day is sort of a, it’s a technical 


issue that has been debated quite a bit among health 


physicists, but it’s my opinion that when you’re 


measuring uranium in urine you’re really looking at 


how much is put out per day which is more related to 


the metabolism of the uranium in the body’s tissues; 


that is, how much they come out into the bloodstream 


and then end up being voided into the bladder. The 


variability of the volume of the urine really is not 


relevant; it really is more how much comes out per 


day. 


DR. FUORTES: Jim, I do this -- This is Lawrence 


Fuortes again. I do this all the time in 


occupational medicine. If you were to correct it for 


creatinine excretion, you might be able to come up 


with an estimate that would support that judgment on 


your part, but if all you have is a concentration, 

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milligrams or micrograms per liter, then I don’t 


believe that what you said is correct at all. The 


absolute volume of the urine is needed to find out 


how much uranium was excreted, so you don’t have that 


information. You have a concentration only. 


DR. NETON: You do need a total urinary output 


per day to do the exact calculation -– 


DR. FUROTES: Which you don’t have. That’s why 


the difference between 1.4 and 2 is highly 


significant. 


DR. NETON: I don’t know, don’t have it here. 


suspect we don’t. You’re right. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon Rutherford. You 


do want to qualify the amount of bioassay data we do 


have. We actually have bioassay data, 34 samples 


from ’44, and we also have 50 urine samples that were 


taken at the end of uranium operations in 1945. So 


we do have a little more data. 


DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I have one 


question I’m not sure we have information on, but do 


we have any idea how many people would, of claimants, 


would be affected if in terms of meeting or not 


meeting the 250 day requirement as proposed here? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon Rutherford. No, I 


do not. I can probably find out rather quickly. 


I 
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DR. MELIUS: Just two other, or one other 


observation is that first of all is this issue of 


what to do with non-SEC cancers. We’ve been 


wrestling with on a case-by-case basis for quite some 


time, and I would repeat my request that we more 


formally deal with this at the advisory board and try 


to establish some policy on this issue because I 


think it’s -– going on an ad hoc basis for individual 


sites I think has some limitations, and I think the 


one time that we dealt with it in terms of our, I 


believe it was one of the Mallinckrodt SEC 


evaluations, one of the Board’s recommendations on 


that I think was some of us were –- It was sort of 


less than satisfactory in terms of how we exactly 


establish that recommendation and communicated that 


recommendation, so I would just think that we need to 


try to wrestle with that issue more formally, and I 


request that we try to get it onto the agenda for the 


next Board meeting, some discussion of that, because 


I think we really need to talk about it. And, you 


know, a related issue that we may need to talk about 


is this issue of what to do, how to establish 


criteria for, you know, less than 250 days, and we 


sort of have, you know, either 250 days, or you know, 


a very short-term very high exposure, and we’ve 

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really not dealt with that. I think it’s come up 


with Pacific Proving Ground, and I think there 


should, it would be worth some time trying to discuss 


this in a more general fashion ‘cause I think it may 


come up at other SEC’s, and I think the Board and 


NIOSH need to, you know, see if we need to establish 


some policy on that or what’s the best approach for 


dealing with that issue also. 


DR. WADE: Yeah, there’s a place holder on the 


agenda for the April meeting where we could put this, 


Jim. 


DR. MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 


DR. WADE: Which is policy on non-presumptive 


cancers and how to deal with the issue of less than 


250 days of exposure. 


DR. MELIUS: And then I would -– Thank you. And 


sort of a follow-up to that is I think, at least as I 


see it, we have two options on (unintelligible). One 


is that we could ask SC&A to do an evaluation, a 


review, of the NIOSH Evaluation Report, particularly 


focusing on this issue of, you know, more acute 


exposure, the 250, you know, the 250 day requirement 


that would be for anybody to qualify, qualify for 


the, be part of the SEC class for this site, and 


further that we ask SCA do an evaluation of the 

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report, focusing on that issue, which I think 


realistically, and there may be some other issues 


that we want them to look at also, but that 


realistically that’s going to then mean that we 


wouldn’t be able to deal with the Ames petition until 


the June meeting. 


DR. WADE: That’s currently scheduled. 


DR. MELIUS: That’s currently scheduled. I guess 


the alternative would be to, you know, deal with that 


issue, that issue separately, but I’m not sure how 


other members of the work group would feel about 


that. 


DR. DEHART: Roy DeHart is now on board, 


apologetically. 


DR. WADE: Welcome. When did you join us, Roy? 


DR. DEHART: About ten minutes ago. 


DR. WADE: Okay. Are you familiar with the 


issues we’re discussing? 


DR. DEHART: Basically, yes. 


DR. WADE: Just, in real brief summary, only two 


issues really have been put on the table, maybe 


three. One is there’s a little bit of difference in 


the timing of the NIOSH recommendation. It goes to 


December of ’54 versus the petition which went 


through December of ’55. In discussion the 

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petitioner mentioned that they added that extra year 


just because they thought there’d be some cleanup 


activity. 


And then the issue of whether it’s 250 days or a 


lesser period of presence to constitute membership in 


the cohort, and that’s being discussed. That’s what 


Jim was just talking about. 


DR. DEHART: Yes, I heard that. Thank you. 


DR. BEHLING: This is Hans Behling. Just on a 


side, and I guess I’m addressing, or posing, this 


question to Jim Neton. The issue of 250 days will 


surely come up with the Pacific Proving Ground SEC, 


and I’m not sure to what extent Jim has taken that as 


an issue for further discussion. 


DR. NETON: Were you asking specifically about 


Pacific Proving Grounds, Hans? 


DR. BEHLING: Yes, because obviously those 


exposures involving Pacific Proving Grounds will 


certainly be considered episodic. 


DR. NETON: Right, our position on it was, at the 


last Board meeting, that 250 day requirement applied 


to the Pacific Proving Grounds, based on the chronic 


exposure nature, the chronic nature of their 


exposure. 


DR. MELIUS: But I believe that the Board asked 

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you to go back and reevaluate that issue, that that 


was one of the three or four issues that we asked to 


be —-


DR. NETON: I don’t know that we were going to 


reevaluate whether the 250 day requirement was 


acceptable. I think it was more to go back and look 


at how that would apply to the claimant population. 


In other words, are there many people –- most people 


would not have 250 days or something of that nature, 


and we will be prepared to discuss that. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, not an overall evaluation of 


the 250 days, but how to apply it to that particular 


population, which probably isn’t directly relevant to 


the Ames situation, at least as I understand it. 


DR. NETON: Correct. 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. Yes, Jim is 


right. That’s what we were contemplating on 


evaluating and looking at the work practices and the 


exposure scenarios. Certainly, you know, these shots 


at Pacific Proving Ground were in essence criticality 


events, but the people that were there, their 


proximity and their exposure to those events were 


controlled to a certain degree, so we need to examine 


that. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. Just to add to the 

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discussion. You know, SC&A has a contract and a task 


to look at full-blown reviews, and Ames was the first 


of those reviews. SC&A’s just at the beginning of 


that process. Now again, the Board can decide how it 


wants to deal with that, but they are just at the 


beginning of that process. I would assume what would 


happen next, unless we were to intervene, would be 


that they would take the evaluation report and really 


start to go through a full-blown evaluation of it and 


the NIOSH processes and procedures to this point. 


DR. MAURO: Lew, this is John Mauro. One of the 


matters we discussed, I believe in our last working 


group meeting, was that –- I believe Jim Melius, you 


had mentioned this, it may be more efficient, rather 


than for SC&A to go through the full-blown review at 


this point in time, in fact this is exactly the 


trigger point, a judgment would be made whether we 


actually move into a more focused review whereby we 


would explicitly look at specific issues as they 


emerge, they are emerging during this conversation, 


or whether we would be mandated to go through a more 


formal comprehensive review of the entire document. 


And I think this is one of the decisions that will 


need to be made. 


As you may recall, when we originally planned 

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this work, under Task V, we did propose it as a full-


blown review, allocated a full 1000 work hours to do 


the review and deliver a fairly substantial 


comprehensive review of the petition and evaluation 


report. However, we also recognize as we move 


through the process, and at the point we’re at here, 


it may be more cost effective to zero in on specific 


issues that not only are discussed here during this 


discussion and others that may come forward, but also 


as SC&A moves through the process and we alert the 


working group to issues that emerge -– So it would be 


more of a living process, hold down the issues that 


we will be specifically looking at so that it will 


become in effect something more of a focused review 


as opposed to what would be called more of a 


comprehensive review. 


What I think is something --- What I think is 


happening is it’s becoming clear that the boundary 


between what one would call a full-blown review, what 


one would call a focused review, may be a little 


blurred and perhaps properly so. So I guess I’d like 


to put that on the table as part of the discussion. 


DR. WADE: All right. Again, this is Lew Wade 


again. Again, we’re interested also, at least in the 


contractual language, with the review of the overall 

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process. I think we need to be mindful of the fact 


that, you know, in this case the recommendation of 


NIOSH is to add a class. Again, that doesn’t negate 


the fact that the process needs to be reviewed. Now 


how the working group wants to deal with that is, I 


think, a topic for discussion. 


DR. MELIUS: I think that’s sort of part two of 


this call. Part one, I think is we need to decide on 


how to go forward, and I guess the alternatives are 


what John just called a focused review that we look 


into, you know, have them do a limited amount of work 


focusing on just specific issues that have been 


raised with the idea that that could be completed in 


time for the June meeting. Secondly, would be a more 


comprehensive review of the whole evaluation report 


which may or may not be able to be completed in time 


for the June meeting. And then third I think would 


be not to have them do any additional review, and 


just, you know, see if there was room on the agenda 


for the April meeting for NIOSH to present its 


report, the Board to make a decision on going forward 


at that time. 


I don’t know if any of the other members of the 


working group have any preferences on how to go 


forward. I think the default is that this is 

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scheduled for presentation at the June meeting. 


DR. WADE: That is correct. 


DR. MELIUS: Mark, do you have any comments? 


MR. GRIFFON: It seems to me that, you know, just 


looking at this petition, or evaluation report, while 


we’re talking here really. I haven’t read it 


thoroughly, but it seems like it lends itself to a 


more targeted review. SC& A’s already reviewed a lot 


of the background material, and I think there’s a 


couple things that we’ve already mentioned that could 


stand out that we might want a little more input 


before we make a decision on this, but I think, I 


don’t think resources will be best (unintelligible) 


doing a full review of this, this petition. I think 


a targeted review would be the way to go. 


DR. DEHART: This is Roy. The targeted review 


has proven in the past to be an efficient way of 


doing things and focusing on the major issues, and I 


would concur with that. 


DR. WADE: Let me ask David Staudt a question, 


and I -- David and I have talked about this in 


anticipation of the call. David, I assume that 


contractually we would have no difficulty switching 


the focus from a full review to a targeted review in 


this case, contractually, is that correct? 

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MR. STAUDT: That’s correct. 


DR. WADE: Okay. 


DR. MELIUS: I agree with the idea of a targeted 


review or focused review, and I think that would be 


the way to go forward. It would allow us to put some 


of these issues that have been brought up and I think 


do need to be addressed. It may be that as we 


discuss them in the more general sense at the next 


April Board meeting that will help to frame some of 


that review, but I think it’s something that would be 


useful to have, this focused review or targeted 


review, that information along with the sort of 


background information, background review that SCA’s 


already done; we’d have that available for the June 


meeting. 


DR. WADE: Okay so -- This is Lew Wade again. 


The way I had sort of story boarded this out, is that 


there would be a report of this working group to the 


full Board in April, on the Ames issue. There would 


also be a report by John Mauro on the status of the 


SC&A activity on the Ames issue. Those two 


discussions could result in very specific 


instructions to SC&A for a targeted review to be 


accomplished before for use at the June meeting. So 


that’s very doable. 

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DR. MELIUS: Then I would suggest that we move 


forward. I don’t know Lars if you have any comments 


on that or... 


DR. FUORTES: I have no comments. I really don’t 


know what your procedural options are, and so I just 


listen. My comments were only relevant to other 


sites, so thank you. 


DR. MELIUS: We’ll move forward in that direction 


on the Ames. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Melius, this is Arjun. I 


have a question. We, we did prepare -– As you know 


we spent about 120 hours doing the background work of 


(unintelligible) and stopped at a small fraction of 


the overall thing and -- The materials are all in 


rough draft form, as notes. And I was a little 


unclear when we report, when SC&A reports to the 


Board, what kind of and how much of that material to 


finalize, or should we just leave it that way and 


give you a, have a little bit of a summary of what 


all we did? 


DR. MELIUS: I would think that a summary would, 


sort of background work would suffice, along with a 


you know more detailed report on you know the more 


specific you know issues we’ve discussed. And 


however certainly that background work may very well 

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prove to be you know useful for the discussion of the 


Ames petition and evaluation that would take place at 


the June meeting. For example, the Board may have 


questions on other issues that we haven’t raised 


or... You know, obviously none of us I think have 


had time to go through this report in great detail 


yet since we just received it late yesterday, so 


there may be other questions that come up. And so I 


think it’s useful for you having done that and you 


know to be able to answer questions to the best of 


your you know ability at being in more general 


questions, but that we would expect your report to be 


you know a more focused report and that’s what would 


be discussed at the you know what you would present 


at the June meeting. 


MR. GRIFFON: Jim, just to clarify on that. 


You’re, we’re anticipating to to define the targeted 


review for SC&A at the April meeting, correct? 


DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. MELIUS: At the April meeting the plan would 


be for the work group to have a short meeting that we 


would then, among ourselves, and then develop sort of 


focused tasks that would need to be done for the June 


report. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro, so as I 


understand this conversation the only deliverable we 


will have for you between now and the April meeting 


in Denver will be a presentation before the 


Subcommittee, perhaps, and then the full Board, 


related to our initial findings from the review we 


have performed, and also -- 


DR. MELIUS: No, no. 


DR. MAURO: Go ahead. 


DR. MELIUS: I don’t think you need to do any 


presentation on this. Correct me if I’m wrong, Lew, 


with the contractor, but I don’t think you would need 


to do any presentation on this at the April meeting. 


The Board, the work group, will present at the April 


meeting, and there may be other issues you will 


present on at the April meeting, but I don’t think 


there’s any need to discuss Ames other than, you 


know, for us to report back what we have done, what 


the work group has done, at the April meeting. 


DR. MAURO: So we have no deliverables related to 


Ames up through and including the April meeting. 


DR. MELIUS: I believe so, and my only hesitation 


is I don’t want to get in trouble with our 


contracting officer. 

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DR. WADE: Yeah, you’re fine. I think coming out 


of the April meeting will be a list of the specific 


issues that the Board wishes SC&A to focus on in 


their review. That will come about through a small 


group meeting of the work group and then a discussion 


of the work group with the full Board that will 


result in that task being issued, as I understand 


what you’re saying, Jim. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, correct.


DR. WADE: 

DR. MELIUS: 

That’s fine. 


Anybody have in questions or 


comments on that? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Dr. Melius, I’m sorry, this is 


LaVon Rutherford. You had asked earlier how many 


people were affected by the 250 day criteria that 


makes (telephonic interference), and it appears 


there’s one individual that may be affected. 


DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: I just wanted to get you that 


answer. I’m sorry for interrupting. 


DR. MELIUS: Thanks a lot. Roughly, how many 


applicants, claims are there? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Fifty-four. 


DR. MELIUS: Fifty-four. Okay, that’s helpful to 


know. Thanks. 

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Now, want to turn to the more general issue of of 


the you know what SC&A’s work on evaluating these 


reports, these SEC evaluation reports. And they put 


together a report and received I think several months 


ago actually proposing an approach to, for their 


review of the evaluation reports. That report 


predated our work group report on evaluating SEC or 


reviewing SEC evaluation reports and an approach for 


doing that, and so we need to try I think to meld the 


two approaches in doing that. 


The other change that took place is, which we 


also discussed at the last meeting, in our work group 


report proposed that the NIOSH, NIOSH develop a more 


detailed outline of proposal outlining what their 


evaluation would be for an SEC evaluation report. 


Currently NIOSH produces a very generic plan for 


their evaluation report, which I think as we 


discussed at the last meeting that was appropriate 


given at the time they produced that plan they 


haven’t really had time to delve into the, you know, 


all the data and so forth, so it’s very hard for them 


early on to develop a more specific evaluation plan. 


We suggested they do so as sort of a second step, 


and I think Larry correctly objected to that, I think 


pointing out that it would sort of add another step 

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and another round. It would only serve, while it may 


be helpful I think one has to balance that with the 


extra workload for NIOSH and the delay in moving 


forward on the SEC evaluation. There’s already a 


tight time period for that for NIOSH, and then if we 


added this sort of second step it would serve to 


delay things and though it might be helpful, that 


amount of helpfulness would be outweighed by the 


delay and extra work. 


And to some extent as I reviewed what SC&A 


proposed was really was some part of their proposal 


was triggered by that evaluation plan, sort of a 


three-step process, sort of review the petition, the 


second one based on the evaluation plan, the third 


based on the review of the evaluation report itself. 


And what I think we need to do is to move that more 


into sort of a two-step plan. There would be what I 


think would prove to be helpful here with Ames where 


initially SC&A did background review of the documents 


and some of the information provided with the 


petition. This case it was a well-documented 


petition with a lot of information so even though 


there was not a full, you know, site profile, site 


profile review to base on, there was a significant 


amount of information, and that proved to be helpful. 

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So step one would be sort of a background, but 


step one would be sort of a background of evaluation, 


what is available information be on site on the 


petition, some sort of review of that, and there’d be 


subsets of that depending on whether or not site 


profile is available or any site profile review has 


been done. 


And that would be in preparation and there would 


be a second step that would evolve that would be 


after the evaluation report was available and would 


follow. And what I think we need to do in work group 


and be willing to do this in working with SC&A for 


the April meeting is sort of prepare a modification 


to their proposed procedures that would incorporate 


this two-step process and would also incorporate some 


of the criteria in procedures that we put in place in 


our work group report that we had presented at the 


last meeting. 


So I guess I put that forward for consideration 


and discussion by the Board. I know not everyone has 


all these documents in front of them, so I may not be 


describing them all in appropriate detail, but we 


need a full Board discussion of this and I’d be 


willing to prepare something and I’ll circulate it to 


the work group before the meeting so that we can, and 

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SC&A, so that at the April meeting we had some time 


as part of our work group report we can discuss these 


procedures. 


Any comments or questions on that, or have I 


thoroughly confused everybody? 


DR. DEHART: Jim, this is Roy. I was going to 


raise this issue. I don’t think there’s a newer 


report than the November 30th recommendation that was 


made for Board procedure for review, special cohort. 


Am I correct on that? 


DR. MAURO: That’s correct. 


DR. MELIUS: That’s correct. 


DR. DEHART: Okay, I had gone through this as 


we’ve had it prior to this meeting, and I think 


you’re kind of hitting it right on the head. We need 


to enfold the recommendations into our 


recommendations to the Board, and I don’t know about 


the two-step, but that certainly is an approach, but 


we do need to roll over our criteria so that where 


it’s appropriate, it matches what SC&A is proposing. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I agree. This two-step, I 


think each one of these situations is going to be 


different, so it’s always going to be hard to 


describe how many of the subsets of this procedure 


there are, ‘cause I think we’re going to in effect 

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end up, I think there’s not a huge number of SEC 


petitions and not a huge number of sites that I think 


we’re going to deal with individually on a site, and 


some of them will depend on timing and some will 


depend on where we are ‘cause often we’re in the 


midst of doing a, you know, a site profile review on 


some of these sites also, and we’re going to end up, 


you know, adapting what procedures we have, so the 


information available and where we stand. I think 


what’s probably is more important is that we make 


sure their procedures, you know, these criterion, 


incorporate those. 


I think secondly I think what we’re looking for, 


at least in many of these evaluations, reviews of the 


evaluation reports, is going to be a more focused 


review rather than a very general one. So now, we 


may get a petition in that’s very broad and we’ll end 


up with a very broad review but certainly there’s 


many of these I think that we can try to focus on 


issues that should be more efficient and should help 


the process. 


DR. MAURO: Jim, this is John Mauro. In 


anticipation of this discussion, I did again 


carefully review the draft procedures and the report 


of your working group, and the three elements that 

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you describe are in my mind very doable. What I mean 


by that is, as you pointed out, we had a three-phase 


process. But I do agree that it is appropriate to 


meld what we called phase one and phase two. 


In phase one we originally envisioned a fairly 


comprehensive plan that would be put forth, but it’s 


clear that not only is it the initial plan by NIOSH 


it appears not to be necessary, nor is it desirable 


to attempt to do something like that so early in the 


process. And what we’re actually experiencing is the 


process of the evaluation of the material is very 


much a living process so the blending of what we were 


calling phase one and phase two into a single phase 


certainly makes sense and our proposed procedures can 


be readily modified to reflect that. So that’s very 


straightforward. 


I also carefully looked at your set of criteria 


in our work-up, and I think there’s a very nice 


mating between the two, and I think we can reformat, 


or reconfigure our work, so that there is a seamless 


relationship between your frame work for review and 


our set of procedures, so I don’t see any 


difficulties in making that transition. 


Finally, a third element, namely morphing our 


procedures to read more along the lines of the target 

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is to get to a point where we get the focused 


reviews. I think that also -- in fact, our 


procedures do not exclude that, that is, actually 


have some language in there already, but I think a 


little bit more along those lines needs to be 


developed and is certainly very doable, so the three 


elements that you just described as to actions that 


may need to be taken to fix our draft procedures are 


very doable. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, if I might comment. This is 


Arjun. NIOSH putting up the documents on the O drive 


and giving us access to the Ames database in this 


case was very helpful to do this background research, 


so that was kind of an important element, and you 


know, kind of being able to go through and develop at 


least a preliminary impression of where things were 


with the Ames Evaluation Report that NIOSH put out, 


even though there wasn’t a lot of time, the 


background work, and having those documents 


available, downloaded, sorted, and having one or two 


people here go through it, that was extremely 


helpful. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think we always have to 


guard against sort of getting too focused and you 


know missing something important, so having you know 

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sort of the familiarity with what is available and 


what information I think is very helpful. 


Mark, do you have any comments? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no. I think the path 


forward sounds appropriate, Jim. 


DR. WADE: Jim, this is Lew Wade. In 


anticipation of the April meeting, I’ll work with the 


contracting officer to look at the contract task 


particularly as it’s currently structured and see 


that if there is elasticity in it that’s fine, if 


there are things we need to do that’s fine, in 


anticipation of the kind of change you’re talking 


about, but I don’t really foresee any difficulty 


here. 


DR. MELIUS: That’s all I had on the agenda for 


this work group meeting. I don’t know, Lew, if you 


were expecting... 


DR. WADE: No, but before we close. When this 


work group is all done, which I guess we’re getting 


close to, I wouldn’t mind just spending two minutes, 


non-substantively, making sure that people are ready, 


who will participate in the afternoon discussion, if 


there are documents they need to be aware of or 


things they need to download, that we do a little bit 


of that. No substantive discussion of the issues. 

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But Jim, so when you close, before everybody hangs 


up, if we could just take one little minute to do 


that kind of bookkeeping. So if you’re done... 


DR. MELIUS: We’re done, so you have your one 


minute, Lew. 


DR. WADE: Larry or Jim, could you just list the 


documents that people would be well to have in front 


of them for this afternoon’s discussion. 


DR. NETON: This is really only a few documents. 


One is obviously the SEC Evaluation Report for the Y12 Petition, and that is I think all working group 


participants have a hard copy as well as an 


electronic copy of that document. It is also 


available on the OCAS web site for those who wish to 


download or print it out. The other set of documents 


that have just recently been put out there are some 


example dose reconstructions that are on the so-


called O drive that are, I think there are six 


examples that we put out there for some discussion 


this afternoon. Other than those two documents, I 


mean there are a lot of other Y-12 documents that may 


come into play, but... 


MR. GRIFFON: The only other one I would say, 


Jim, I just updated the matrix. 


DR. NETON: Right. 

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MR. GRIFFON: So for continuity purposes I think 


it might be useful to crosswalk that while we’re 


doing the petition review. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, Mark put out the updated Y-12 


comment resolution matrix yesterday and folks should 


have that available to work from. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, this is Arjun. I only found 


one example on the O drive. Am I looking in the -- 


Oh, I see. 


DR. NETON: It’s called DR Examples, and there’s 


a sub-directory for each example. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I see it now, sorry. 


DR. NETON: It’s pretty buried, but it should be 


in there. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I see it. 


DR. NETON: This is sort of a work in progress. 


I’ll have to warn you, there are other examples, you 


know, to the extent that I can look at them and 


review them and get them distributed, you know, we 


may want to talk about them, but at a minimum I think 


we should be able to go over these six. 


DR. WADE: Mark, anything else you want to 


prepare your work group for? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, I think you know if you have a 


little time now to maybe look at the matrix and the 

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petition (unintelligible). I think those are the 


primary documents, so I agree with Jim. 


DR. WADE: Okay, so 1:00 p.m. Same time, same 


station -- Sorry, same time, same number. I was 


reverting back to my serial days -– 


DR. MELIUS: One quick question, Lew. You had 


asked earlier, or you had mentioned earlier, there’s 


going to be a presentation on the Nevada Test Site 


SEC? 


DR. WADE: That is my understanding, correct. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. We have not 


had anything on that yet. I don’t see how we can 


have a presentation if the working group on the 


Nevada Test Site hasn’t seen it yet. 


DR. WADE: Okay. Larry, any comments? 


MR. ELLIOTT: The evaluation report for the 


Nevada Test Site petition, it’s an instance where 


under 82.12 we’ve identified where we cannot do dose 


reconstruction, and we have worked with the claimant 


to process an 83.14 SEC, and that report will be 


delivered this afternoon. 


DR. MELIUS: Okay. This is not, my understanding 


there was not a petition submitted on the Nevada Test 


Site. 


MR. ELLIOTT: No, there’s no petitions. This is 

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not in reaction to a petition; this is in reaction to 


our identification of a claim where we cannot do dose 


reconstruction. 


DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay, okay. But I thought I saw 


some press coverage about a petition being submitted? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, you probably saw that from 


Senator Reid’s office. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. WADE: That’s downstream. 


DR. MELIUS: Okay, that’s where I was confused on 


it. 


DR. WADE: Okay, I think we’re done with this 


call. Very productive, and thank you all. And Lars, 


thank you for making the time available, and we’ll -- 


Those of us who are involved in the next working 


group, that’s Mark’s, on Y-12, we’ll call back in at 


1:00 p.m. 

______________________________ 

55 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of April 11, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


16th day of April, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102